The Goodale Boulevard offices of Buildipedia are typically quiet, concealing all the noise the
website is trying to make online.

Founded by two contractors more than three years ago, the site —
Buildipedia.com — is seeking to be the
Wikipedia of the construction environment, covering everything from building a deck to designing a
city.

Its goal: to stand out in the crowd of home, construction and architecture websites dominated by
big players such as DIYNetwork, HGTV, Ask the Builder, Houzz, and
Builder and
Architectural Record magazines.

“The quality is there; it’s good, but how do we get noticed?” asked David Skomorowski, who owns
the site with Mark Leatherwood.

Leatherwood and Skomorowski, partners in the Ashville, Ohio, construction and development firm
LW Associates, founded Buildipedia after growing frustrated with the quality of construction
information they found online.

“We wanted to be a source for anyone needing information about the built environment,”
Skomorowski said.

After enlisting contractors, engineers and architects as contributors, they contacted Kinopicz,
a digital design and production firm run by Francesco Lazzaro and Damian Wohrer, who helped craft
Buildipedia’s site.

They brought managing editor Jennifer Randle and associate editor Fernando Pages Ruiz on board.
Randle and Ruiz then attracted big-name contributors such as John Norquist, the former mayor of
Milwaukee and an urban design author; and Marianne Cusato, an author and architect best-known for
designing “Katrina cottages.”

But Buildipedia’s future might depend more on two other names: Jeff Wilson and Rachael Ranney,
who star in do-it-yourself videos that have broadened the site’s audience.

“What I liked about them, when we first started talking, is they had an eye toward accuracy,
information — good solid articles,” said Wilson, an author and former HGTV host who lives in
Athens, Ohio. “I don’t run into that all that often with my other contacts (who are) more aimed at
entertainment.”

While Buildipedia’s audience is roughly divided between what Skomorowski calls “Joes and pros,”
he sees Joes driving Buildipedia’s future.

“We’ve been analyzing the audience since day one, and DIY videos are a big opportunity,”
Skomorowski said. “As the site evolves, we will . . . keep the other content but laser in on the
Joe side.”

The site was redesigned early this year to draw more attention to the DIY videos, most of which
are produced by Lazzaro in a back-room studio in Kinopicz’s offices.

“The production values on a lot of online DIY videos aren’t great — a guy with a tripod in his
garage — but they get a lot of hits,” Randle said. “We thought we could get the hits with much
higher quality.”

The site’s challenge lies in refining its content, said Michael Burk, the senior manager of
client service with the Columbus-based Internet marketing firm Resource.

“The Buildipedia site is clean and simple to navigate,” Burk said. “The biggest challenge is to
create and curate quality content that connects with Buildipedia’s core audience.”

The site attracts about 70,000 unique visitors and 125,000 page views a month, according to the
company.

The company also draws traffic on a YouTube channel and through a partnership with AOL Video,
which allows Buildipedia videos to appear on other sites.

In addition to that revenue, Buildipedia generates income from selling advertising. Company
officials also see revenue opportunities in advertorial content, such as serving as a forum for
companies to announce products.

During the next year, Skomorowski said, owners want to take the site “from a labor of love to a
viable business.”

Although the site isn’t profitable, he is pleased with the content and feedback.